Making sense of Nomination Day for GE13

Published: 20 April 2013 5:24 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 – Nomination Day is done for the May 5 polls that has seen a number of multi-cornered contests and titanic battles between candidates going on the campaign trail for the next 15 days.

Here is The Malaysian Insider’s take on Nomination Day, where there was no shortage of surprises, independent candidates and hubris.

* Biggest Fact

For the first time since the 1959 elections in independent Malaya, the Alliance/BN did not win any parliament or state seat unopposed.

For the first time in Malaysian electoral history, all 222 and 505 state seats will see contests.

* Biggest Sham

The spin cycle has started with Umno saying that the decision by its candidate for Pasir Mas to withdraw and give Datuk Ibrahim Ali a straight fight with PAS was not a directive from the headquarters, but a case of cold feet by its candidate. Now that would be believable if we all had single digit IQs.

The fact is that there has been pressure from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and others in Umno for Ibrahim to be allowed to contest the Pasir Mas ticket under Barisan Nasional (BN) colours.

But others in BN felt that fielding him under the blue of Barisan would alienate non-Malays even more after his threat to burn Bibles and fighting talk against Chinese.

So a nice compromise was found: the BN candidate for Pasir Mas would withdraw, paving the way for Ibrahim to be the defacto BN rep. Can it get any worse for middle Malaysia with Zulkifli Nordin and now Ibrahim Ali?

* Biggest Farce

Parti Islam Semalaysia (PAS) have been in a possessive mood. Way before Nomination Day, there have been rumblings in Pakatan Rakyat over PAS’s penchant to make unilateral announcements on seats which had already been allocated to other parties in the Opposition alliance.

Despite several meetings, PAS didn’t budge.

The result: In the Sg Acheh state seat, Badrul Hisham Shahrin of PKR will be involved in a contest with Umno’s Mahmud Zakaria and Yusni Mat Piah of PAS.

And in Labuan, PKR’s Ibrahim Menudin will face-off with Hadnan Mohamad of PAS and Rosman Isli of BN.

In Terengganu, PAS is fielding three candidates in state seats meant to be a straight fight between ally PKR and BN.

PAS’s Adam Mat Said is up against PKR’s Mohamad Abdul Ghani Ibrahim and BN’s Mohd Mahdi Musa in Kota Putera.

In Bukit Besi, Roslan Ismail will run as the PAS candidate against PKR’s Mohd Shamsul Mat Amin and BN’s Roslee Daud.

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